When we left Jessica and Rob in London last April 20th, we had tentatively planned to meet again in Istanbul in mid-August over a long weekend. Although we were not sure where would be along our EuroVelo Route 6 journey. We were nonetheless hoping that we could combine our get together with Jessica and Rob with an additional week or two visiting other parts of Turkey.

As the Russia invasion of Ukraine continued while we were cycling, the news of Ukrainian residents being displaced to neighboring countries started to concern Jenny – namely for accommodation availability. Nonetheless whenever someone asked us where we were heading, I continued to answer the same as we initially planned: Romania (Bucharest). Jenny became adamant that she would not be entering any Eastern European countries such as Serbia and Romania.

As we learned more about airport delay, lost baggage and the likes, we decided to postpone our Istanbul visit and consider itinerary changes to minimize the potential hassle of multiple airport transfers. Hence, we decided to head west and enter Croatia instead of going east into Serbia when we reached the southern part of Hungary. We were able to book our return flight with Air Transat from Zagreb to Ottawa – unfortunately it was double the price of our flight to London. We’ll have to wait and see whether our travel decisions are wise or not.

The white line on the map above shows the cycling segment of our EV6 that we will be skipping – about 15 days worth of cycling.

2022.07.10 – Vienna ==> Vienna (0 kms | Total: 3373 kms)

We had a relaxing hotel breakfast in company of a trove of other guests. In the early afternoon, we left our hotel and walked across the street to the train station which also offered a convenient subway station. We bought ourselves 24h transit cards to facilitate our access to the city center for some sightseeing. As we emerged from the underground subway station, we were quickly approached by different ticket touts offering seats to classical music concerts at various venues across the city. While we were pursuing our 1.5h self-guide walk, we sought concert details from the different company offerings. By the end of our walk, we had committed ourselves to some seats in a silver zone of a given concert hall because all the VIP and gold section seats were sold out. Jenny had skillfully negotiated a two-for-one ticket price of 59€. We then returned to our hotel for a short rest and then went to the nearby Chinese restaurant for an early evening meal. At 6:45pm, we took the subway back to the city center and walked over to our concert hall. Upon being seated by staff, we were informed that there was an error in their seating list for our assigned seats. We were delighted to see that our new seats would be in the gold section – in fact just one row behind the VIP section. Our free seating upgrade would have typically cost an extra 100€ from the advertised price. As we waited for the performance to begin, to our surprise we realized that our concert was going to be held in the same hall as the one we attended 11 years ago (almost day-for-day) with Jessica and Victoria. We had a very fulfilling experience of Vienna tourist offering. (Walked 12 kms).

2022.07.11 – Vienna ==> Vienna (0 kms | Total: 3373 kms)

After our hotel breakfast, we took the subway to Schönbrunn Palace area where we spent several hours touring the expansive grounds. We re-visited an activity area (Irrgarten and Labyrinth) where we had a hilarious time exploring with Jessica and Victoria back in 2011. We attempted to re-create a few nostalgic family photo poses from that previous visit. On our way back to the hotel, we stopped at a bicycle shop to have a look at their tire offerings. Late afternoon, we had our complimentary hotel drinks. In the evening, we struggled to find available seating at a number of restaurants specializing in Austrian food since it would be our last meal in Austria. At the end and after walking for more than one hour, we gave up on our search and opted to circle back to yesterday’s delicious Chinese restaurant. (Walked 15 kms).

2022.07.12 – Vienna ==> Bratislava (71 kms | Total: 3443 kms)

After finishing our hotel breakfast, I went to retrieve our tandem from the bicycle parking located in the train station. Although I was expecting the process to be cumbersome it was actually hassle free. We had read from cyclist blogs that rejoining EV6 from the city of Vienna could be quite challenging. Thankfully, our offline gps (Organic Maps) guided us well to our bicycle path after some 8kms of street, bicycle path and bridge navigation. After 10 kms on the EV6, we lost sight of the Danube as the bicycle path cut straight across farmland. The cycling was rather monotonous, but we were nonetheless grateful that the temperature was comfortable (mid-20C) with a cloudy sky and a light tailwind. We noticed significantly fewer touring cyclists today on the EV6. We suspected that many of them completed their cycling adventure in Vienna while others will do the same later in Budapest. After 40kms cycling, we had to cross a very long bridge. Shortly after that we encountered some light rain for a short time. Our crossing into Slovakia was uneventful as we only noticed a small roadside signage notifying us of the country change. We checked into our hotel at 2:30pm. We started to notice more differences between Austria and Slovakia than we had noticed between Germany and Austria. For example, we were re-united with Tesco grocery stores which we had not seen since leaving England. We also felt like English-speaking locals were more frequent in Bratislava. In the evening, we visited another Chinese restaurant nearby our hotel. To our surprise, the restaurant was almost completely full. Later, we walked in the old town and noticed that all the restaurants were also quite busy.

2022.07.13 – Bratislava ==> Bratislava (0 kms | Total: 3443 kms)

As we started noting some differences yesterday between Slovakia and Austria, this morning we noticed some additional differences regarding the hotel breakfast offerings between Bratislava and Vienna. The French baguette was back on the buffet table while bacon was replaced by wieners, etc. We undertook a self-guide walk and spent 3 hour sightseeing across the old town. Later on, we returned to our room for some rest. We also spent time updating our trip expenditures. In the evening, we visited a burger restaurant for dinner. (Walked 10 kms).

2022.07.14 – Bratislava ==> Bratislava (0 kms | Total: 3443 kms)

Today was pretty much a repeat of yesterday, but we visited different tourist sites. It was also much sunnier and hotter than yesterday. In the afternoon, I did some tandem maintenance and inspection. Later, we relaxed in the hotel lounge with our complimentary drinks. In the evening, we returned to the nearby Chinese restaurant which we enjoyed on our first night in Bratislava. And finally, we took another long stroll through the lively and pleasant old town. We were initially surprised to hear some French songs being performed on stage, but then we realized it was France’s Bastille Day. The Institut Française in town organized the celebration and sponsored various booth highlighting food, drinks, technology from France. We treated ourselves to some expensive gelatos. Overall, we enjoyed our time in Bratislava a lot more than in the overwhelming touristy city of Vienna. (Walked 10kms).

2022.07.15 – Bratislava ==> Mosonmagyaróvár (42 kms | Total: 3486 kms)

After our hotel breakfast, we reloaded the tandem and cycled out of town. Along the way, we cycled for 5kms with a UK-expat who had been living in Bratislava after marrying a local girl for five years. As we crossed over into Hungary we were expecting the cycling road condition to deteriorate somewhat, but it was not the case today. Upon arriving in town, we visited a local bicycle shop to check their tire inventory as our front tire, which we had replaced in France, had developed some significant uneven wear. Finding a reasonable quality tire was not necessary urgent as we still hauling the original folded front tire. After checking into our hotel at 1:00pm, we visited a nearby grocery store. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at a currency exchange booth where we exchanged some US dollars to local Hungarian Forint currency. In the evening, we had our dinner at our hotel’s restaurant.

2022.07.16 – Mosonmagyaróvár ==> Györ (44 kms | Total: 3529 kms)

After an excellent hotel breakfast offering, we rejoined our EV6 cycling route. The separate cycling path was parallel, for the most of part, to the main road leading to the town of Györ. Upon cycling through the town center, we quickly concluded that we needed to explore the area later in the day as it appeared interesting. At our hotel check-in, we realized that showing our passports was going to be a requirement in Hungary as this was the second hotel in a row that required our passports on registration. I had to highlight our Silver Accor membership to the hotel desk in order for them to allow us check-in earlier than their 3:00pm official policy. Later we visited a grocery store for some snacks. In the evening, we walked over to the town center for our dinner at a Mexican restaurant.